University of Borås/Swedish School of Library and Information Science (SSLIS)

Media type:

text

Keywords:

CensurFiltreringPornografiEtikForskningsöversiktTeknik

Abstract:

This paper is a research review in the realm of censorship systems and
filtering systems. It applies ethical considerations to the creation of censorship
systems bringing forward discussion on the ethics of technology with the
purpose of limiting access to information.
There is active research being done in the area of automatic content filtering
and censorship systems. These are systems that can filter out undesired
material, typically from the Internet, automatically. Used in some nations,
many schools and even mandated in some libraries there are many ethical
questions raised concerning censorship and access to information.
Part of the review concerns the level of accuracy of these systems presented
by researchers in the field and the different approaches used. Reviewed
articles centre around automatic content classification and filtering of
potentially harmful materials with regards to minors while some relate to
censorship technology in a wider sense.
Results show a general lack of discussion concerning the ethics of the
technology in the research reviewed. Most of the filtering systems under
discussion are concerned with pornographic material. The existence of some
kind of moral guidelines are often implied but hardly explored explicitly or
defined. The most common techniques are intelligent content filters in the
forms of textual or visual analysis and increasingly both combined. Results
indicate a high reliability for filtering pornography and significantly lower
results for other domains.